By David Gordon
If you ever had a sickening desire to see what a fly on the wall feels like, head on over to the Music Box Theatre. Let’s just cut to the chase: “August: Osage County,” Tracy Letts’ three-and-a-half-hour epic is perhaps the best, and most ambitious, American play Broadway has seen in years.
“August” opened last summer, in a production by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company, for what was initially to be a standard limited run. Fast-forward four months. Following universal acclaim, “August” moved to Broadway’s Imperial Theatre in November. After extending an initial, limited run numerous times, the show is now playing, indefinitely, at the Music Box Theatre right next door.
This isn’t a situation where the hype is better than the show itself. “August: Osage County,” is just that good. It’s a dark comedic tale of a large, extended family dealing with the disappearance and suicide of the aged patriarch. Letts just won the Pulitzer Prize, and will surely be given a number of other accolades come awards season.
All but two of the Steppenwolf cast members moved with the show to Broadway. Led by Deanna Dunagan as acid-tongued, pill-popping matriarch Violet, currently suffering from cancer of the mouth and Amy Morton as Barbara, the oldest daughter onto whom all responsibility falls, this cast is the stuff dreams are made of. All 14 cast members bring a frightening realism to the play.
Letts’ script is both outrageously funny and overwhelmingly sad, made even more poignant by recent events surrounding the production. Letts’ father, Dennis, a 70-something, retired English-professor-turned-actor, made his Broadway debut in the production after being diagnosed with lung cancer prior to the production’s transfer. He performed until the end of January and passed away shortly before it was announced that the limited run would be extended indefinitely.
The three hours plus running time may scare people, but thanks to director Anna D. Shapiro, it feels like nothing at all. The actors don’t leave the stage-they’re sequestered into corridors and various rooms in Todd Rosenthal’s three-tiered doll house of a set. There’s always something to look at on the off chance you get bored.
This production of “August: Osage County” is, for all intents and purposes, theatrical history in the making. Scripts like this rarely come along, and it’s even more rare to see a three-hour play without major celebrities find success on Broadway.
Buying a ticket now is a more than a worthwhile investment.